Contacted re lounge suite I was selling. Buyer Requested contact through their email not through Gumtree which I thought strange. They accepted my price & asked for my bank acc details, address & when convenient for pick up which I gave them. They then sent through a notification from a Revolut bank which I had never heard of saying $500 more than the asking price had been deposited into this bank & as soon as I paid the courier costs of $500 the money would be released into my account from Revolut bank. They gave the name of a female & her bank account details as the Courier company. I immediately realised I had been scammed & fortunately didnât pay any money out, but am concerned about giving all my bank, address details.
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You are very lucky realising before transferring the money never to be seen again. A lesson you possibly have learnt is never assume money has been paid until you see it (cash in the hand or deposit in your account)⊠and never give out personal details to those you donât know. The third is asking to correspond outside a selling platform should raise alarm bells as well.
I would contact your bank to let them know to see if there are any risks they may think exist.
I believe the risks are potentially low as some businesses provide bank and contact details on their websites for payment options.
Risks are possibly higher with personal details as it is one jigsaw piece along with others potentially needed for identity theft.
I would be very cautious about posting other personal information online or giving out to those you donât know (e.g. date if birth or businesses you are a customer) as these can fill other parts of the jigsaw.
It is also worth going to the police with this information as it could be the scammer or an unsuspecting mule where the scammers use them to transfer money. Either way, the police may be interested in this information along with what happened to you.
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As a reality check, that is the right thing to do but in my experience the police will probably be disinterested and at most will take a report.
They are not equipped, trained, or sufficiently funded to deal with online fraud or identity theft. If there has been no loss their initial position is there has been no crime, nothing to investigate, so on to something easier and more in the publicâs face.
Yet with realistic expectations filing a police report is the right thing to do.
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This post I did yesterday pretty much sums up the reality.
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Could be worth reporting it to Scamwatch
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Do let the Police know, @Cooper4344 and report also to wwwcyber.gov.au
Could be added to other similar reports,
and also come useful if anything else happens to you (Touch wood 
).
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Congratulations on not being scammed.
This basic scam has been around for decades (almost as long as the general public has been using the internet). I donât know whether it has a name.
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In addition to notifying the authorities, I would notify Gumtree - since the Gumtree account is being used for scam purposes. Maybe the account can be shut down. I realise that the scammers will just start a new account, but closing the current account may abort other scams in progress and you may save someone else from being scammed who would have fallen for it.
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I encountered a very similar strategy using bank details in the Philippines and a story of someone working offshore with limited shore leave. I offered to arrange transport, even though it was an unlikely request, given the item and the distance and insisted that payment was made to me before we had a sale agreement, so it fell through. I reported the details to Gumtree and Scamwatch, so they might appreciate hearing how the methods are adapting.
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I too have been targeted by this scam (and that wasnât on Gumtree or ebay).
They always have some convoluted explanation for why they are requesting unusual or strange arrangements.
I didnât fall for it either. 
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Just thinking further, an option to try and stop scammer is to advertise the item with the comment âsale is cash only on collectionâ. This may deter some scammers who think they can do a bank transfer scam.
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Thatâs OK if you are prepared to limit your potential market in that way (cash only, collection only).
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I donât see the problem here. I would accept three means of payment.
- Cash on pickup
- Direct money transfer into my nominated account. When the money appears in the account, the buyer can arrange pickup.
- Bank cheque. When cleared, as per 2.
That doesnât protect the buyer. The address can be bogus, the goods even non-existent. (However that does protect the seller from this particular scam.)
Thereâs a lot to be said for âcash on collectionâ in the situation that buyer and seller donât trust each other.
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This particular topic is about sellers being scammed by dodgy buyers.
If you want to talk about buyers being scammed by dodgy sellers then that is another situation. And vastly more prevalent I would think. There are many topics on this site alone that cover this area.
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